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TagsBY KYLE FRANKO
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
By now everybody knows Mike Rice.
They know about his catchy slogan, his locker room punching bag and his vulgar practice sessions.
So it should come as no surprise that Rice — who is as high-strung as any coach in the country — has one thing on his mind.
Attack.
"We have to play to our strength," Rice said. "We can't sit back and say we're going to guard this motion or guard this player. We have to attack and attack with our minds and our bodies because if we don't do that we're not going to be successful. This is going to be an attacking type team and if three-and-a-half guys are doing it, that's not going to work. We need all five guys attacking at once."
Rice really doesn't have any other option.
This 2010-11 version of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights is undersized and, frankly, not nearly talented enough to compete in the Big East.
The three best players from last year's team are no longer in the program. The three remaining seniors — Jonathan Mitchell, James Beatty and Mike Coburn — are more role players than go-to guys. Dane Miller, the one player that can score in bunches, isn't a complete 40-minute player yet and sophomore Austin Johnson and freshman Gilvydas Biruta aren't ready to bang on the Big East block.The list could probably go on, but Rice doesn't need to see it. He doesn't sugar coat anything.
"This is a group eager to prove people wrong," Rice said. "We all know it's an undermanned unit, a unit that has to sometimes play out of position. It's a unit that understands what it has to do in a game but may not be able to overcome [its shortcomings]. That's why our mantra this year is teamwork over talent."
And to attack. Attack with reckless abandon.
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"We're not going to wait for team's to hit us first. We're going to hit them first," Beatty said. "We're going to be in guys' faces and making it tough for them to score. It won't be like last year where we sat back and let teams pick us apart. This year we will attack."
It hasn't taken Rice long to start instilling those values in his team. The practice intensity has been ratcheted up ten-fold.
To Rice, players are supposed to be tired during practice. There is no more half-assing, no more coddling, no more egos.
"You play as long as you can, as hard as you can," Rice said. "If you are relaxing or resting on the floor, you are being selfish."
Rice jumped on Miller the first week of practice for just that.
"The intensity is high," Miller said. "Even if you are so tired that you feel like you can't give 100 percent, he might throw you out of practice. But the intensity is so high because he wants you to play at that level all the time."
Although Rice and his players would never actually say it, this is in all effect, a house-money year.
The fans don't anticipate much. The Big East coaches picked the Scarlet Knights to finish 15th in the league again. Just matching last season's five conference wins (two of which came against DePaul) would probably be considered a massive success.
Yet there are still so many signs of optimism. Rice has already banked seven future recruits and the stench of Fred Hill is fastly fading away.
If Rutgers fans are lucky, even if it is just once, they might get a glimpse of what's to come in the future.
"I feel like that the swagger we have and the chip we have on our shoulders --- we're going to come out and win," Millers said. "I think every player has something to prove. Our main thing is we are going to shock the world, in any way possible. I guarantee you, we will shock the world."
That is a Rice-ean attitude.
